Official communication outlet of the Orange County Deaf Advocacy Center. Our official press releases and situational responses are found here.

Wednesday, December 07, 2005

OCDAC Newsletter December 7, 2005

Dear Friends,

Everyone is busy with their yuletide shopping and partying and this
time of the year and it is not producing much news for this
newsletter. We give a warm welcome to all who joined our huge family
of subscribers in the past few months.

The community bullhorn section has information on a new website that
enables deaf community members to provide their own brickbats or
bouquets in relay service companies. It's a great site for us to look at!

The editor had become under heavy attack last Sunday at the Alldeaf
blog in which someone using a nickname called FightOn started posting
over 15 nasty posts of the editor and our organization. This FightOn
person listed names and organizations who would say plenty of negative
things about us. We can only agree to those names and organizations
because and their gripes about us is due to the fact they were things
that seriously needed fixing and they have been fixed a long time ago
and, of course, they were fixed at the expenses of these people and
organizations who were listed. Those people listed were extremely
dangerous to the deaf society at that time and they had to be
neutralized so they can not embarrass the deaf society any further.
These are people who want to send the deaf society back to the 19th
century. The people listed were typical ASL militants, disbarred
attorneys and their associates, former presidents of deaf
organizations, and deaf scam artists. If people want to rant about
us, let them. A good number of the blog members quickly rushed to our
defense and furthermore the blog owners have removed the FightOn's
membership all of FightOn's postings and we commend them for
encouraging everyone to be deaf to negativity.

We are having a Deaf Latino Health Fiesta for the public at Tacos
Mexico Restaurant in Santa Ana that has been good to hold our
outreach events toward deaf Latinos. The event is this Friday on
December 9, 2005. 6pm till 11 pm. This will go on at the same time
as the Block at Orange social events. We're just inviting them over to
see our outreach program as part of the 2nd Friday experience at the
Block at Orange.

The purpose of the Deaf Latino Health Fiesta is to connect deaf and
non-deaf latinos of positive co-existence opportunities in the health
area. We will have material in Spanish of the various health
opportunities our society offers. Across the street from Tacos Mexico
is another Starbucks Cafe, next to it are Denny's and Popeye's, and
also between a Subway's, and Taco Bell.

This month's bulletin has very good stuff from the Department Of
Justice and it's strongly suggested you make copies of the new
publications and take them with you when you have to go to hospitals,
hotels, and motels.

Remember us as the holidays are coming up! Don't forget to use the
Albertsons, Ralph, and Food4Less Cards this coming Holidays as you
will help us with our mission and vision statements. Our iGive
program is there to help you with your holiday shopping too.

We have began planning for at least 10 educational events in addition
to our famous deaf awareness booth at the Orange County Fair. For more
information about these education events, please visit our volunteer
list at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ocdacvolunteer/

We have started on the planning our free Valentine's day dance event
next February. This will be supported by vendors who purchased booths
and we already have 2 vendors lined up for this.

We are having a Bowl-A-Thon next February 18, 2005 at the Westminster
Lanes and we are working this out with the lane management. We are
seeking sponsors for this event th help us cover the cost of the lanes
which is estimated from $800 to $1,300.

Our blue van which we use to transport deaf-blind people to events and
we also use to conduct numerous fundraiser and education activities is
showing signs it will need to be replaced soon. We use it to transport
over 15 deaf and deaf-blind people to various events each month.
These deaf and deaf-blind clients who are unable to use the bus cant
qualify for our local ACCESS program since their system's rules make
it extremely difficult to do so. Therefore our deaf and deaf-blind
friends are relying on us to help them participate in our society's
offerings and that is done through our blue van. The wipers have
ceased working making it inoperable on rainy days, the transmission is
bad limiting our travel to local areas. Last week the sliding door on
the side fell off because the metal cracked at the top. The van has
been heavily used in assisting us with our mission and vision
statements. We would appreciate your help in getting us a new van
soon so we can continue helping these deaf and deaf-blind people and
our education and fundraising activities. If you're interested in
helping us out, please contact us at ocdac@deafadvocacy.org

The Orange County American Sign Language Meetup Group -http://asl.meetup.com/37
/ - meets each 3rd Wednesdays of the
month.

The Orange County Deaf & Hearing Impaired Meetup Group -http://deaf.meetup.com/
38/ - meets each 1st Saturdays of the month.

-------------< ANNOUNCEMENT >

Even though most of us working on computers only work on one, the
average American depends on more than 264 computers per day—from the
tiniest microprocessor to the largest mainframe! That is a lot of
people depending on a lot of computers! Think of how much money could
go to the Orange County Deaf Advocacy Center if 264 supporters bought
one computer each at www.iGive.com/ocdac, where up to 26% of every
purchase is donated to the Orange County Deaf Advocacy Center! At
www.iGive.com/ocdac, membership is free! So hurry up and visit the
Mall at www.iGive.com/ocdac, where you can shop at 600+ stores for all
your favorite electronics and computers from Dell, HP Shopping, Buy,
Computers4SURE, The Apple Store, SONY, and Gateway!

National Council on Disability to Address Long-Term Services and
Supports Concerns for People with Disabilities

WASHINGTON-The National Council on Disability (NCD) will release its
report The State of 21st Century Long-Term Services and Supports:
Financing and Systems Reform for Americans with Disabilities at a news
conference at 9:00 a.m., December 15, 2005, at the NCB Development
Corporation, Concourse Level Conference Room, 1725 Eye Street, NW,
Washington, DC. This meeting is open to the public and free of charge.
However, space is limited. For security, all guests will be escorted
to the conference room.

"Be kind, be responsible, be safe," says Pono the deaf 10-year-old
Kauai boy who was denied access to his sign language interpreter
during a baseball tournament.

-------------< ANNOUNCEMENT >

Do you shop at Albertsons or Sav-on stores? You can get a free
community partners card at those stores and then add it to our list of
supporters. A percent of what you buy will go to helping our Deaf
youth program. If you already have a school or other program that you
are supporting, don't worry, you can add your card to support our
program too! There are two ways to add your card. You can email your
First and Last name with your phone number and community partners card
number to ocdac@deafadvocacy.org or you can download and print our
Albertsons / Sav-on Community Partners signup forms athttp://www.deafadvocacy.org/AlbertsonsSignup.pdf and have your
friends, neighbors, associates, and relatives sign up as supporters
and then mail the form to the address on the form. To reach our
funding goal we need 25,000 supporters who shop at Albertsons /
Sav-on. And remember to use your community partners card when you shop
at Albertsons or Sav-on.

Relay Review was created to fill the need for an independent forum to
allow the community of relay communication users to share their
opinion about the service they depend on everyday. Here, you can
compare ratings for different providers and read what other relay
users have to say.

Relay Review seeks Constructive Feedback from you, your family,
friends, and colleagues. Serious complaints should be directed to the
Relay Provider's Customer Service department. Offensive, nasty, or
defamatory comments are not welcome and will be removed. Our purpose
in inviting and communicating feedback is to help relay providers
improve. Positive and honest feedback can make a difference!

The providers who thrive and bring customers back will be the ones
that not only listen, but eagerly solicit consumer feedback.

Feedback also means praise and recognition. Relay Agents are human and
would like to know when they've performed their jobs well. If you have
a wonderful experience through the relay, do let them know it with a
posting on Relay Review. A "thank you" goes a long way.

We recycle used cell phones, empty printer and toner cartridges! If
you have any of these to unload from your hands, please send or drop
them at our agency at 2960 Main Street, A100, Irvine, California 92614

-------------< DEAF FRIENDLY BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES >

Begin your journey toward self-sufficiency by becoming a .WS domain
reseller! Become an owner of a _________.WS website for only $10 a
month! Includes hosting, email, and easy to use website design tools
to create a professional looking website. And all _________.WS owners
automatically become .WS website resellers and it comes with an
automatic selling program. All you have to do is lead people to your
reseller website! The WS stands for 'website'! This is an excellent
self-sufficiency opportunity for people who want to be on the top of
the .WS cyber real estate market. Take a look at the ASL video athttp://www.deafadvocacy.org/cbep/website05.wmv and if you're
interested in this self-sufficiency program please go tohttp://website.ws/ocdac for an easy sign up. Or if you do not know
American Sign Language, go straight to the reseller page athttp://website.ws/ocdac for a video of the program.

===============================

Begin your journey toward self-sufficiency by becoming a Discovery
Toys consultant! Discovery Toys focuses on learning through play,
with products specifically designed to maximize learning moments, has
proven to be a success as the company has now witnessed an entire
generation grow up with Discovery Toys. Many parents and their adult
children credit DISCOVERY TOYS® products with helping them to develop
core skills and self-esteem, which contributed to their later life
accomplishments and success as adults. Beth Koenig is your Discovery
Toys consultant. Her Discovery Toys website is atHttp://www.discoverthetoys.net and this is a great business
opportunity for people disabilities. Discovery Toys is one of our
supported activities through our Community Business Enterprise Program.

-------------< LETTERS >

deafCensus™, Inc
PO Box 1889
San Diego, CA 92112-1889

December 1, 2005

Dear Sir or Madam:

I would like to introduce myself to you. My name is Bob Plubell. I am
the founder of deafCensus™, Inc. The mission of deafCensus™ is
threefold: 1. To provide demographic data on the Deaf and hard of
hearing population to non-profit organizations, research institutions
and public agencies. 2. To establish and maintain a comprehensive,
national database directory of organizations and their profiles. 3. To
empower Deaf and hard of hearing individuals and organizations with
the ability to have access to and knowledge of statistical facts about
Deaf people, organizations and services in order to improve the lives
of Deaf people everywhere.

To date, deafCensus™ has compiled data on over 5,500 organizations.
All email addresses have been indirectly or directly found from many
websites. Some websites are inaccurate, have broken or obsolete links,
or need to be updated. All information may not be accurate without
your verification and input. Accuracy is important to the success of
data collection and distribution of your agency or website's
information. For this reason, I would appreciate very much for you to
respond to a questionnaire. The website of the questionnaire is at the
end of this email. Please fill out one form per office. If you have a
branch or satellite office, you may forward this email to any
additional offices to be completed.

The benefit of compiling a huge database directory of Deaf-related
organizations is to enable users to navigate easily through categories
of several levels, an interactive map display and detailed
organization profiles. Every organization found in the database will
get more visibility and marketability while promoting greater networking.

I greatly appreciate your effort and time to fill out the
questionnaire. Please feel free to contact me for more information on
this unique and much needed project.

Sincerely yours,

Bob Plubell
Founder, deafCensus™

Survey website: www.deafCensus.biz/survey/org.htm

-------------< EPILOG >

If you wish to contribute to this newsletter, feel free to send in
news, stories, and opinions relating to the disability community. Your
support in this effort to move the disability community forward will
be greatly appreciated. We will continue to aggressively pursue
justice, fairness, and equality for the disability community as it has
been doing since November 1996. We have chosen
that EDUCATION is the best way to accomplish this objective.

The Orange County Deaf Advocacy Center is a community based
organization that puts people with disabilities first in their
advocacy for equal opportunities in safety, health, and productive living.

The Orange County Deaf Advocacy Center provides services for disabled
individuals and their families in our community who need help in
navigating the social services maze. Every day people go without
proper food, shelter, and essential medical care every day due to a
variety of factors including low wages, job loss, injuries, illness,
age, domestic violence, or divorce. While all of us are susceptible to
hard times, disabled individuals are at the most risk. With the
generous support of people like you, we are able to help many of these
families and individuals not only to meet essential daily needs, but
to work toward a brighter future with programs in job training,
education, counseling, elderly assistance, and temporary housing.

Feel free to forward this email message to anyone and any of your
personal mailing lists so we can get the important messages out far
and wide and encourage them to sign up for our weekly newsletter.